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LIBRARY  OF  THE  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 

PRINCETON.  N.  J. 

Presented  by 

CAvrtW. 

BV  600  . L32  1923  ^ 

Langenwalter ,  Jacob  Hermann 
1877-1965. 

The  charge  of  the  Church  of 
Jesus  Christ  to  you 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


https://archive.org/details/chargeofchurchofOOIang_O 


THE 

Charge  of  the  Church 
of  Jesus  Christ 

TO  YOU 


v 

J.  H.  LANGENWALTER 
President  of  Bethel  College 
Newton,  Kansas 


BETHEL  COLLEGE 

NEWTON,  KANSAS 


Copyright,  1923,  by 
J.  H.  LANGENWALTER 


THE  KANSAN  PRINTING  CO..  NEWTON,  KANSAS 


DEDICATION 


THIS  WORK  IS  DEDICATED  IN  SYM¬ 
PATHETIC  ADMIRATION  TO  THOSE  OF 
THE  YOUTH  OF  OUR  DAY  WHO  LOOK 
FORWARD  TO  A  LIFE  GRATEFULLY 
COMMITTED  TO  GOD, 


— —  — 


FOREWORD 


This  work  has  gradually  grown  out  of 
the  study  of  young  lives  from  the  angle  of  a 
pastor,  and  a  teacher  in  college,  and  semin¬ 
ary.  The  recurring  occasion  when  young  men 
and  young  women  fared  forth  with  enthusi¬ 
asm  to  tell  others  through  word  and  deed  of 
what  God,  as  revealed  by  Jesus  Christ,  had 
come  to  mean  to  them,  suggested  repeatedly 
the  thought  that  a  brief  yet  somewhat  com¬ 
prehensive  message  to  them  might  not  come 
amiss. 

The  letters  of  Paul,  especially  those  to 
Timothy  and  Titus,  seem  to  the  author  to 
suggest  the  value  of  such  an  undertaking. 
This  will  explain  why  these  letters  have  been 
drawn  upon  so  freely  in  this  work. 

The  author  owes  much  to  the  inspiring 
interest  of  his  students  throughout  the  ten 
years’  experience  in  college  and  seminary.  It 
w7as  to  a  small  group  of  these  that  fragments 
of  what  follows  here  were  first  given  in  the 
final  lecture  in  a  course  of  biblical  homiletics 
in  the  Mennonite  Seminary  at  Bluffton,  Ohio, 
in  1918.  Four  years  later  a  larger  portion  of 
this  work  was  given  in  the  form  of  a  com- 


5 


6 


THE  CHARGE 


mencement  address  to  the  graduates  of  the 
Witmarsum  Seminary. 

While  this  work  is  primarily  written  for 
those  who  have  definitely  dedicated  them¬ 
selves  to  Christian  work,  of  a  specified  type, 
the  truths  which  are  here  presented  are 
meant  for  the  good  of  every  Christian.  The 
author  takes  the  position  with  many  others 
in  the  Christian  Church  that  to  be  a  follower 
of  Jesus  Christ  means  to  be  a  carrier  of  the 
“Good  News  of  Jesus  Christ”  to  others.  This 
does  not  do  away  with  Christian  teaching  at 
home  or  abroad  by  those  who  have  been 
specifically  ordained  for  this  work,  but  it 
does  add  to  even  their  efficiency  by  laying 
it  upon  the  heart  and  the  mind  of  every 
confessor  of  the  Christ  that  he  also  is  a  mes¬ 
senger  for  the  Master.  The  wish  of  Moses, 
“Would  that  all  Jehovah’s  people  were  pro¬ 
phets,  that  Jehovah  would  put  his  spirit  upon 
them,”  (Numbers  11:29b),  is  well  worthy  of 
receiving  the  consideration  of  both  the  or¬ 
dained  and  the  unordained  followers  of  Jesus 
Christ  today.  Moreover,  it  may  be  a  good 
thing  for  the  layman  of  the  Church  to  un¬ 
derstand  more  fully  the  obligations  and  the 
problems  which  face  the  minister. 

Not  every  duty  of  the  Christian  whether 
lay  or  ordained,  could  possibly  be  touched  up- 


OF  THE  CHURCH 


7 


on  in  a  brief  work  of  this  kind.  It  is  assumed 
that  those  who  undertake  Christian  work  are 
men  and  women  of  prayer — who  go  freely  to 
the  Source  of  our  strength  in  carrying  out 
the  work  of  our  Lord  and  Master,  and  it  is 
assumed  also  that  just  as  they  have  been 
won  themselves  they  make  it  a  part  of  their 
life’s  business  to  become  “soul  winners.”  To 
the  author,  this  seems  self-evident,  both  as  a 
matter  of  gratitude  for  what  we  have  re¬ 
ceived  ourselves,  and  as  a  matter  of  fraternal 
interest  for  those  who  need  what  we  have 
received. 

The  author  is  grateful  to  many  whose  sug¬ 
gestions,  more  often  unconsciously  than  con¬ 
sciously  given,  have  moved  him  to  commit 
this  material  to  print  and  he  sends  it  forth 
in  the  hope  that  others  may  catch  the  sug¬ 
gestion  and  inspired  by  the  same  may  be¬ 
come  more  efficient  bearers  of  the  “Good 
News  of  Jesus  Christ”  to  such  portions  of  the 
world  as  they  may  touch  during  the  days  of 
their  sojourn  upon  earth. 

J.  H.  LANGENW  ALTER. 
Bethel  College, 

Newton,  Kansas, 

February  twenty-second, 

Nineteen  hundred  twenty-three. 


THE 

CHARGE  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF 
JESUS  CHRIST 
TO  YOU 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

Introduction 

Chapter  I _ Individual  Prospective  Teachers 

Chapter  II_  .Members  of  a  Group  of  Teachers 

Chapter  III _ Leaders  of  Groups 

Chapter  IV _ Servants  of  God 


INTRODUCTION 


In  a  moment  when  Paul  sat  down  to 
write  one  of  those  superb  personal  letters  to 
an  individual  for  whom  he  had  deep  love,  as 
well  as  high  regard,  he  wrote  these  words, 
“The  end  of  the  charge  is  love  out  of  a  pure 
heart  and  a  good  conscience  and  faith  un¬ 
feigned/’  (I  Timothy  1:5).  In  this  letter,  as 
well  as  in  other  personal  letters,  Paul  uses 
the  statement  “charge”  frequently.  He 
seems  to  feel  that  somehow,  as  a  young  man 
committed  to  Jesus  Christ  faces  the  possi¬ 
bilities  of  his  day  that  there  is  a  charge 
committed  to  him  which  he  does  well  to  re¬ 
gard  with  sanity  and  fervor.  This  word 
“charge”  may  be  considered  as  a  proclama¬ 
tion,  or,  again,  it  may  be  understood  as  an 
order  to  be  obeyed,  but  it  may  also  be  taken 
as  a  matter  of  teaching  or  instruction. 

If  Timothy,  the  young,  spiritual  son  of 
Paul  of  more  than  eighteen  hundred  years 
ago,  was  confronted  with  what  Paul  termed 
a  “charge,”  we  of  our  day  would  do  well  to 
face  life  squarely  and  ask  ourselves,  both  as 
to  whether  there  is  a  charge  committed  to 
us,  and  what  constitutes  that  charge.  Would 
not  Paul  say  to  us  also,  “This  charge  I  com- 


13 


14 


THE  CHARGE 


mit  unto  thee,  my  child  Timothy,  according 
to  the  prophecies  which  led  the  way  to  thee 
that  by  them  thou  mayest  war  the  good  war¬ 
fare,  holding  faith  and  a  good  conscience.” 
(I  Timothy  1,  18)  ? 

As  a  matter  of  information,  this  brief 
message  is  important.  It  is  whole-souled  in 
tone.  There  is  nothing  of  the  spirit  of  the 
proverbial  “second  lieutenant”  about  it.  It 
speaks  of  an  intimate  relationship  between 
him  who  reports  the  charge  and  the  recipi¬ 
ent.  It  implies  an  equally  beautiful  and 
strong  relationship  between  him  who  bears 
this  message  to  his  young  friend  and  Him 
from  whom  it  comes.  It  is  a  great  man's  ap¬ 
peal  to  a  man  who  can  become  great. 

You  too,  my  young  friends,  are  in  the 
line  of  a  strong  succession.  That  succession 
is  prophetic  in  no  crass  sense,  but  in  the  real 
sense  of  having  been  called  of  God  to  work, — 
a  work  which  is  dear  to  Him,  unspeakably 
dear.  You  too  stand  at  the  place  where  to 
progress  means  that  you  shall  carry  on  a 
warfare,  not  of  physical  force,  but  a  warfare 
that  shall  push  the  firing  line  of  love  out  just 
a  bit  farther  and  carry  the  Cross  of  Jesus 
Christ  a  bit  more  fully  and  clearly  into  the 
lands  where  people:  still  “sit  in  darkness,” — 
and  these  lands  do  not  all  lie  across  the  sea, 


OF  THE  CHURCH 


15 


nor  do  all  their  people  belong  to  the  colored 
races.  You  too,  will  need  to  hold  the  faith 
by  living  it  in  such  a  way  that  your  lives 
shall  increasingly  be  your  profession  which 
could  not  be  couched  in  mere  words,  but 
which  will  be  clearly  understood  by  those  to 
whom  your  words  would  be  strange  sounds. 
You  too,  will  find  it  your  increasing  reward 
to  keep  a  good  conscience  so  that  that  which 
you  want  to  be  with  God  shall  never  be 
marred  by  disharmonious  attitudes  on  your 
part  toward  Him. 

This  matter  of  having  a  charge  com¬ 
mitted  to  one  is  not  out  of  keeping  with  the 
spirit  of  Jesus  Christ  when  he  says,  “And 
ye  shall  know  my  truth  and  the  truth  shall 
make  you  free.”  (John  8,32).  This  charge 
does  not  make  men  slavish,  it  sets  them  free 
in  the  larger  sense.  Paul  suggests  this  when 
he  writes  to  Timothy,  “And  to  this  end  we 
labor  and  strive  because  we  have  our  hope 
set  in  the  living  God  who  is  the  savior  of  all 
men,  especially  of  them  that  believe.”  (I 
Timothy  4,10).  Paul  felt  that  this  was 
worth  the  labor  and  the  striving,  and,  there¬ 
fore,  chose  them.  When  such  an  objective  is 
set  before  a  young  man  or  a  young  woman, 
the  labor  which  is  necessary  and  the  strain 
which  becomes  its  incidental  companion  are 


16 


THE  CHARGE 


forgotten  for  the  most  part  because  of  the 
hope  which  is  set  on  the  living  God,  and  be¬ 
cause  of  the  true  freedom  which  they  will 
find. 

You  will  find  the  religious  needs  and  the 
religious  responses  of  men  if  you  can  make 
them  see  God ;  and,  if  you  will  pay  the  price 
in  labor  and  striving  to  convince  men  that 
you  are  taking  the  charge  committed  to  you 
with  manly  or  womanly  seriousness,  men  will 
believe  in  your  religion.  There  are  few  men 
who  do  not  spend  much  time,  comparatively, 
in  giving  consideration  to  the  fact  that  they 
need  to  be  saved  from  themselves  as  they 
now  are  to  the  kind  of  self  which  they  ought 
to  be.  They  want  to  realize  somehow,  some¬ 
time,  somewhere,  the  assurance  that  they  are 
right  with  Him  Who,  after  all,  speaks  of  Him¬ 
self  all  about  them,  as  well  as  within  their 
own  souls.  It  is  a  part  of  your  charge  com¬ 
mitted  to  you  that  you  shall  not  only  bear 
the  message  to  men  who  need  God,  but  to 
bear  it  in  such  a  way  that  God  may  appeal 
to  them  and  may  win  them  through  ways  of 
His  own  for  which  you  cannot  substitute. 

In  bearing  your  charge  to  men  you  will 
find  opportunities  of  yielding  to  things  which 
would  tend  to  weaken  you  as  bearers  of  the 
“Good  News  of  Jesus”  to  others.  For  this 


OF  THE  CHURCH 


17 


reason  Paul  writes  to  his  young  friend,  “But 
thou,  0  man  of  God,  flee  these  things  and 
follow  after  righteousness,  godliness,  faith, 
love,  patience,  meekness.  Fight  the  good 
fight  of  faith,  lay  hold  on  the  life  eternal 
whereunto  thou  wast  called  and  didst  con¬ 
fess  the  good  confession  in  the  sight  of  many 
witnesses.  I  charge  thee  in  the  sight  of  God 
who  gives  life  to  all  things  and  of  Christ 
Jesus  who  before  Pontius  Pilate  witnessed 
the  good  confession,  that  thou  keep  the  com¬ 
mandment  without  spot,  without  reproach, 
and  until  the  appearing  of  our  Lord,  Jesus 
Christ’'  (I  Timothy  6:11,14).  “Oh  Timothy, 
guard  that  which  is  committed  unto  thee, 
turning  away  from  the  profane  babblings  and 
the  opposition  of  the  knowledge  falsely  so 
called“  (I  Timothy  6:20).  You  will  note 
that  Paul  gives  a  pungent  warning  in  regard 
to  things  from  which  to  turn  with  prompt¬ 
ness  and  clearness  of  decision,  but  even  here 
he  devotes  more  time  to  the  things  which 
Timothy  is  to  do.  He  is  to  “follow  after,” 
that  is,  he  is  not  to  stand  around  and  merely 
wait  for  things  to  happen. 

He  is  to  follow  after  righteousness. 
There  are  many  crooked  things  with  which 
men  have  to,'  contend,  but  any  young  man 
who  will  accept  the  charge  of  Jesus  Christ 
needs  to  keep  himself  straight. 


18 


THE  CHARGE 


He  is  to  follow  after  godliness.  There 
is  a  sense  in  which  we  cannot  be  like  God. 
We  cannot  be  equal  to  Him,  but  there  is  a 
sense  in  which  we  can  and  should  be  like  God. 
We  can  increasingly  become  more  like  Him 
in  the  desires  of  our  hearts  and  intents  of 
our  minds. 

He  is  to  follow  after  faith.  He  is  not  to 
clasp  some  statement  rapturously  unto  his 
bosom  and  say  that  he  has  the  faith.  He  is 
to  take,  with  the  full  capacity  of  his  soul,  the 
attitude  of  childlike,  loving  confidence  to¬ 
ward  God  and  to  keep  growing  in  this  atti¬ 
tude. 

He  is  to  follow  after  love.  However 
sweet  the  impulses  and  youthful  emotions 
and  passions  may  be  to  him  today,  he  is  to 
realize  now  that  there  will  come  a  time  when 
love  must  take  on  man-sized  proportions,  that 
it  too  can  grow  and  must  grow  if  he  is  to  re¬ 
main  increasingly  a  worthy  charge-bearer  of 
his  Lord. 

He  is  to  follow  after  patience,  steadfast¬ 
ness  or  greatness  of  courage.  The  idea  con¬ 
veyed  by  this  word  is  in  no  sense  the  counter¬ 
part  of  mere  submissiveness.  It  definitely 
expresses  the  idea  of  courage,  but  courage  of 
a  great  caliber,  of  a  fine  quality, — a  thing 
which  no  youth  can  hope  to  get  fully  de- 


OF  THE  CHURCH 


19 


veloped  at  one  stroke,  and  without  which  he 
cannot  hope  to  render  any  service  worth 
while. 

He  is  to  follow  after  meekness.  He  is  to 
know  his  place  and  to  fill  it  well. 

Again,  Paul  suggests  to  him  that  he 
should  fight  the  good  fight  of  faith.  That  is, 
he  should  exercise  himself  in  the  faith  which 
he  now  has,  that  he  may  grow  stronger  in 
faith  which  he  may  have;  that  he  is  to  lay 
hold  on,  that  is,  “lay  hands  on,”  the  life  eter¬ 
nal  whereunto  he  was  called.  When  God  gra¬ 
ciously  gives  eternal  life  to  men,  it  becomes 
their  right  by  virtue  of  His  grace,  and,  once 
it  becomes  their  right  to  have  life  eternal, 
it  becomes  their  moral  obligation,  their  spirit¬ 
ual  duty,  to  lay  hold  on  eternal  life.  Eternal 
life  is  not  a  matter  of  length  of  existence,  but 
a  matter  of  quality  or  caliber  of  life.  Jesus 
defines  it  thus  in  His  great  prayer  in  John 
17 :3 :  “And  this  is  life  eternal,  that  they 
should  know  Thee  the  only  true  God,  and  Him 
whom  Thou  didst  send,  Jesus  Christ.” 

These  things  seem  to  have  constituted  in 
the  mind  of  Paul  an  interpretation  of  the 
will  of  God;  and,  therefore,  he  charges  his 
youthful  protege  in  the  sight  of  God,  who 
gives  life  to  all  things,  and  of  Jesus  Christ, 
who  before  Pontius  Pilate  witnessed  the  good 


20 


THE  CHARGE 


confession,  that  he  keep  the  commandment 
without  spot,  without  reproach,  until  the  ap¬ 
pearing  of  our  Lord,  Jesus  Christ.  No  man 
can  ask  less  of  you  today  than  that  you  keep 
the  will  of  God  unsullied  and  do  not  become 
responsible  for  any  reproach  justly  heaped 
upon  it  by  other  men  because  of  your 
conduct. 

No  doubt  young  Timothy  considered 
these  words  a  strenuous  charge,  and  well  he 
might.  They  are  just  that,  and  one  does  not 
wonder  that  Paul  himself  finds  his  emotions 
stirred  by  the  message  which  he  has  just 
given,  so  that  he  says,  “Oh,  Timothy,  guard 
well  that  which  is  committed  unto  thee,  turn¬ 
ing  away  from  the  profane  babblings  and  op¬ 
positions  of  knowledge  which  is  falsely  so- 
called.” 

You,  too,  have  a  charge  to  keep,  but  to 
keep  it  as  a  charge  of  the  living  God,  not  as 
a  dead  thing  that  can  be  wrapped  up  in  a 
napkin  and  buried  until  the  Master  calls  for 
it  again.  He  who  keeps  this  charge  well  has 
no  time  for  profane  babblings  or  conceited 
protestations  as  to  the  superiority  of  his 
knowledge. 

One  wonders  whether  after  such  a 
charge  the  mind  of  young  Timothy  did  not 
raise  the  question  as  to  the  possibility  of 
meeting  it.  He  must  have  felt  his  weakness 


OF  THE  CHURCH 


21 


in  becoming  responsible  for  the  keeping  of 
so  much  with  so  little  encouragement  to  be 
expected  from  his  environment.  Paul  meets 
this  feeling  when  he  says,  “That  good  thing 
which  was  committed  unto  thee,  guard 
through  the  Holy  Spirit  which  dwelleth  in 
us.”  Timothy  also  was  compelled  to  learn 
that  there  are  good  spirits  and  bad,  and  that 
while  many  a  time  he  would  be  compelled  to 
avoid  the  influence  of  evil  spirits  that 
very  fact  should  make  him  all  the  more  ready 
to  give  full  sway  to  the  suggestive  guidance 
of  the  good  Spirit,  the  spirit  of  God.  You 
also  will  need  the  help  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and 
it  should  be  a  source  of  encouragement  to 
you  to  remember  that  Jesus  called  him 
Paraclete,  i.  e.,  “One  who  can  be  called  to 
your  side.” 

To  some  of  you,  who  are  about  to  lay 
down  the  work  of  students  in  some  institu¬ 
tion,  these  things  have  hitherto  been  com¬ 
mitted  as  charges  of  information  and  in¬ 
struction.  You  have  been  taught  these 
truths.  You  have  been  instructed  as  regards 
their  meaning  and  their  carrying  power. 
Now  you  yourselves  are  to  become  the  pro¬ 
claimed,  the  teachers,  the  instructors,  and, 
therefore,  you  need  to  face  yourselves  as 
such,  who  in  turn  are  to  commit  this  charge 


22 


THE  CHARGE 


to  others.  Whether  professionally  so,  or  not, 
is  a  very  secondary  question.  Each  man, 
woman,  and  child  to  whom  you  will  commit 
this  charge  has  a  life  to  live,  has  a  need  for 
these  truths,  has  an  end  to  seek  which  can 
be  found  only  as  they  learn  to  face  God 
squarely  and  honestly  without  confusion  of 
mind.  In  all  of  these  the  church  of  Jesus 
Christ  is  interested.  I  speak  not  now  of  any 
one  formal  organization.  I  speak  of  that 
great  body  of  believers  in  Jesus  Christ  who 
are  essentially  committed  to  him.  There  is 
an  esprit  de  corps  of  the  Christian  Church 
which  cannot  be  overestimated,  and  dare  not 
be  underestimated.  Men  of  all  colors  and 
races,  who  though  they  may  never  have 
known  each  other  are  still  one  at  heart  as 
they  face  our  God,  these  they  are  who  con¬ 
stitute  the  “Church  of  Jesus  Christ”  which 
charges  you. 


CHAPTER  ONE 


AS  INDIVIDUAL  PROSPECTIVE 
TEACHERS 

First,  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ 
charges  you  to  consider  whether  yon  should 
teach  at  all.  The  warning  of  James  (3:l-2a) 
“Be  not  many  of  you  teachers,  my  brethren, 
knowing  that  we  shall  receive  heavier  judg¬ 
ment,  for  in  many  things  we  all  stumble/’ 
still  has  its  significance.  As  you  go  about 
to  commit  this  charge  to  others  you  are  fac¬ 
ing  responsibility,  and  you  yourselves  need 
to  be  responsible  men  and  women.  If  ever 
the  world  needed  such  people  it  needs  them 
today.  The  facing  of  such  responsibility  is 
not  unaccompanied  by  humiliations.  There 
always  has  been  “stumbling”,  and,  so  far  as 
we  can  see,  there  is  likely  to  be  some  for  a 
considerable  length  of  time  to  come ;  but  that 
stumbling  should  be  decreasing  in  the  exper¬ 
ience  of  responsible  men. 

Sometime  ago  this  inscription  was  seen 
on  a  card  placed  in  a  prominent  position  on 
a  great  business  man’s  desk,  “He  who  makes 
no  mistakes  does  nothing.  He  who  makes 
too  many  loses  his  job.”  A  friend  who  saw 


23 


24 


THE  CHARGE 


it  said  to  him,  “You  should  have  added  to  it, 
‘Or  should  lose  it’.”  That  is  the  warning 
which  the  business  world  holds  out  to  the  ir¬ 
responsible  man,  the  man  who  does  not 
“watch  his  step”,  the  man  who  is  not  careful 
about  decreasing  the  amount  of  his  stumbl¬ 
ing.  Sometimes  a  man  may  continue  to  hold 
his  nominal  position,  but  so  far  as  the  real 
opportunity  of  his  work  is  concerned  he  loses 
that.  You  too,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  your 
consciences  told  you  that  you  should  not 
teach  or  preach,  might  continue  to  hold, 
through  some  influence  of  your  own  or  of 
others,  a  nominal  position  of  responsibility, 
but  your  influence  as  one  to  whom  God  has 
committed  a  responsible  charge  would  be  lost, 
and  that  loss  cannot  be  compensated  by 
the  gain  that  any  nominal  position  might 
bring  you. 

Second,  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ 
charges  you  to  keep  your  fitness  for  leader¬ 
ship.  “Faithful  is  the  saying,  if  a  man  seek- 
eth  the  position  of  an  overseer,  he  desireth 
a  good  work.  The  overseer,  therefore,  must 
be  without  reproach.”  (I  Timothy  3:l-2a). 
Is  not  that  a  fine  challenge  to  the  youth  in 
whose  veins  there  pulsates  life-teeming  blood 
and  whose  heart  throbs  at  the  thought  of 
what  it  means  to  be  the  comrade  of  God! 


OF  THE  CHURCH 


25 


The  church  of  Jesus  Christ  is  willing  to  give 
young  people  an  opportunity  to  meet  that 
challenge.  It  is  willing  to  commit  to  you,  my 
friends,  a  great  work,  and  it  expects  you  to 
add  dignity  and  honor  to  that  work  and  to 
detract  nothing  from  its  value  through  any 
reproach  which  you  may  heap  upon  it  by 
losing  sight  of  the  charge  which  has  been 
committed  to  you. 

Third,  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ 
charges  you  to  know  what  you  are  about. 

(a)  “Jesus  Christ  came  into  this  world 
to  save  sinners.”  (I  Timothy  1:15).  This 
sentence  discloses  a  very  significant  fact 
that  affects  both  the  world  of  humanity  in 
its  supreme  need  and  the  Son  of  God  and 
Man  in  His  supreme  attempt  to  meet  that 
need  through  self-sacrifice.  He  who  would 
carry  the  charge  of  His  Lord  dare  not  lose 
sight  of  the  fact  that  there  are  sinners  and 
that  Jesus  Christ  came  to  save  them. 

(b)  In  the  second  place,  the  long-suffer¬ 
ing  of  Jesus  Christ  must  be  able  to  show  it¬ 
self  further  in  you.  (I  Timothy  1:16).  Some¬ 
how,  men  are  going  to  rate  Jesus  Christ  by 
what  they  see  in  you.  Your  actions  and  your 
attitude  will  usually  speak  so  loudly  that  men 
cannot  hear  what  you  say,  and  the  charge 
which  has  been  committed  to  you  will  find 


26 


THE  CHARGE 


its  interpretation  in  the  minds  of  men 
through  the  strongest  impression  which  you 
make  upon  them. 

Fourth,  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ 
charges  you  to  grow.  The  writer  to  the 
Hebrews  complains  (5:11-12),  “Of  whom  we 
have  many  things  to  say  and  hard  of  inter¬ 
pretation,  seeing  ye  are  become  dull  of  hear¬ 
ing,  for,  when  by  reason  of  the  time  ye  ought 
to  be  teachers,  ye  have  need  that  one  teach 
you  which  are  the  principles  of  the  oracles  of 
God  and  are  become  such  as  have  need  of 
milk  and  not  of  solid  food/’  Just  as  this 
writer  of  old  felt  that  there  was  a  time  when 
those  who  had  received  unusual  opportunities 
could  reasonably  be  expected  to  stand  on 
their  own  feet  as  leaders,  so  the  world  today, 
and  most  of  all  the  Christian  Church,  expects 
men  to  reach  the  age  of  accountability,  for 
things  to  be  done  as  well  as  for  decisions  to 
be  made. 

Fifth  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ 
charges  you  to  get  a  correct  measure  of  your¬ 
selves.  Paul  touches  upon  this  thought,  both 
with  force  and  clearness,  when  he  says 
(Romans  12 :3),  “For  I  say  through  the  grace 
that  was  given  me,  to  every  man  that  is 
among  you  not  to  think  of  himself  more 
highly  than  he  ought  to  think,  but  so  to  think 


OF  THE  CHURCH 


27 


as  to  think  soberly  according  as  God  hath 
dealt  to  each  man  a  measure  of  faith.” 

This  thing-  of  getting-  one's  measure  cor¬ 
rectly  is  a  problem  which  each  person  placed 
into  a  position  of  leadership  must  solve,  but 
it  somehow  seems  as  though  the  ministry 
needs  to  give  extra  thought  to  this  fact. 
Again  and  again  in  history,  when  ministers 
or  other  Christian  workers  have  had  an  un¬ 
usual  opportunity,  instead  of  getting  a  cor¬ 
rect  measure  of  themselves,  they  have  looked 
upon  their  opportunity  as  a  personal  privi¬ 
lege  and  have  developed  an  unhealthful  class 
spirit  which  forgot  to  serve  but  attempted 
to  feed  on  the  glamour  of  its  nominal  posi¬ 
tion  rather  than  to  find  satisfaction  in  the 
opportunity  of  serving  Christ  and  of  being 
useful  to  mankind.  Of  this  danger  Fairbairn 
says  (The  Philosophy  of  the  Christian  Re¬ 
ligion,  page  560),  ‘The  more  religion  is 
bound  to  a  special  class  of  persons  who  offi¬ 
ciate  at  special  times  and  seasons,  the  more 
these  persons  become  distinguished,  not  by 
character  but  by  descent,  not  by  spiritual 
purity  but  by  ceremonial  cleanness,  not  by 
moral  eminence  but  by  distinctions  of  office 
and  habit.  And  these  things  do  not  make 
for  a  high  or  a  universal  ideal  in  religion ;  on 
the  contrary,  without  their  abolition,  one 


28  THE  CHARGE 

could  not  be  realized.  The  only  institution 
possible  in  a  universal  religion  must  be  an 
ideal ;  and  Christ  is  at  once  an  historical  and 
a  symbolical  person.  As  the  one,  He  shows 
what  the  worshipper  ought  to  be;  as  the 
other,  He  is  the  cause  of  acceptable  worship.” 

It  may  be  well  in  this  connection  to  say 
a  word  about  worship,  for  it  is  still  true,  as 
Jesus  said  to  the  woman  at  the  Sychar  well 
(John  4:22a),  “Ye  worship  that  which  ye 
know  not,”  and  then  added  significantly, 
“but  the  hour  cometh  and  now  is  wrhen  the 
true  worshippers  shall  worship  the  Father  in 
spirit  and  in  truth,  for  such  doth  the  Father 
seek  to  be  his  worshippers.”  (John  4:28,24). 
Viewed  in  this  light,  worship  becomes  a  very 
valuable  as  well  as  a  very  practical  thing. 
One  begins  to  realize  that  worship  is  the  feel¬ 
ing  that  you  have  business  in  the  presence 
of  God,  and  that  you  are  willing  to  accept  any 
contribution  which  He  may  wish  to  make 
during  and  after  the  time  when  you  have 
had  your  interview  with  Him. 

There  probably  never  was  a  time,  at 
least  not  within  recent  generations,  when  the 
struggle  between  keeping  oneself  pure  and 
undefiled  on  the  one  hand  and  the  desire  to 
be  recognized  because  of  some  official  stand¬ 
ing  on  the  other  hand,  was  quite  so  acute  as 


i 


OF  THE  CHURCH 


29 


it  is  today.  The  forms  in  which  this  struggle 
finds  its  expression  are  varied  and,  on  the 
surface  of  things,  seem  to  have  nothing  to  do 
with  the  age-old  responsibility  of  getting 
one's  correct  measure ;  but  anyone  who  faces 
squarely  the  facts  as  they  may  be  seen  in  the 
struggle,  soon  realizes  that  that  admonition 
still  has  its  place  in  the  work  of  the  church 
today. 

What  is  true  concerning  overestimation 
is  no  less  true  concerning  underestimation  of 
the  self,  or  self-depreciation.  Both  are  in¬ 
correct  and,  therefore,  unworthy  of  any  one 
worth  following. 

Sixth,  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ 
charges  you  to  remember  that  you  are  young. 
Paul  writes  to  his  young  friend  Timothy, 
(I  Timothy  4:12),  “Let  no  man  despise  thy 
youth ;  but  be  thou  an  example  to  them  that 
believe,  in  word,  in  manner  of  life,  in  love,  in 
faith,  in  purity." 

Young  people  have  always  had  to  face 
the  facts  that  they  still  have  much  to  learn ; 
that  their  best  friends  expect  them  to  grow 
and  will  do  much  to  give  them  an  opportunity 
of  doing  so;  that  they  need  enthusiasm;  that 
they  should  have  freshness  of  vision;  that 
they  have  time  both  to  labor  and  to  wait;  and 
that,  withal,  they  have  the  right  and  the 


30 


THE  CHARGE 


spirit  to  set  a  new  pace  for  the  progress  of 
the  Kingdom  of  God.  These  facts,  Paul  evi¬ 
dently  has  in  mind  as  he  intimates  to  Timo¬ 
thy,  that  he  would  have  much  to  learn;  and 
what  youth  of  today,  facing  the  great  work 
of  the  Kingdom  of  Jesus  Christ  knows  every¬ 
thing  ?  As  we  look  back  into  history,  the  life 
which  faced  a  young  man  in  the  time  of  Timo¬ 
thy  seems  quite  simple  as  compared  with  the 
complexity  of  the  problems  which  confront 
human  society  of  our  own  day.  Yet  Timothy 
had  much  to  learn.  So  does  he  who  today 
faces  the  world  with  its  wants  as  expressed 
both  by  its  desires  and  its  needs.  Who  can 
take  up  a  single  problem  that  engages  the 
attention  of  human  society  today  and  lay 
across  it  the  straight-edge  of  his  own  knowl¬ 
edge  and  say  with  confidence,  “There  is  the 
solution”  ?  Anyone  who  dares  to  do  this  will 
find  out  sooner  or  later  that  either  he  has 
given  only  a  superficial  attention  to  all  of 
the  facts  that  are  involved,  or  he  has  at¬ 
tempted  to  give,  instead  of  a  solution,  a  glit¬ 
tering  generality  which  has  no  contact  with 
the  facts  involved  in  the  case. 

If  Timothy  was  expected  to  grow,  by  a 
man  like  Paul,  he  was  to  be  congratulated, 
for  not  every  youth  of  his  day  received  such 
encouragement  for  spiritual  growth  in  un- 


OF  THE  CHURCH 


31 


selfish  service  and  love.  The  church  of 
Jesus  Christ  today  takes  the  same  attitude 
toward  you,  her  prospective  leaders.  You 
may  not  always  realize  this.  When  you  do 
realize  it  occasionally,  you  may  feel  that  men 
expect  you  to  grow  as  a  mere  matter  of  duty 
to  them.  You  may  feel  at  times  that  that 
which  is  expected  of  you  in  the  way  of 
growth  is  unreasonable,  but  remember  this 
as  you  fare  forth  with  the  blood  of  youth 
coursing  through  your  veins,  that  he  who 
really  expects  you  to  grow  and  to  succeed  in 
the  Kingdom  of  God  is  willing  to  do  some¬ 
thing  to  help  you  realize  that  expectation. 

Timothy  was  expected  to  have  enthusi¬ 
asm  enough  to  keep  going  in  spite  of  any 
handicaps  which  might  come  to  him  because 
of  men  who  thought  that  he  was  a  mere 
youth.  You  too  will  need,  enthusiasm  and 
will  find  out  sooner  or  later  that  that  is  not 
identical  with  effusion.  Real  enthusiasm 
gradually  becomes  a  glow,  rather  than  an 
effusive  explosion.  It  should  not  die  out 
with  the  years,  but  become  warmer  and 
stronger.  It  is  necessary  in  the  Kingdom  of 
God  if  it  is  necessary  anywhere  and  we 
charge  you  to  guard  well  this  glowing  fire  on 
the  sacred  hearths  of  your  lives. 

You  too  need  freshness  of  vision.  The 


32 


THE  CHARGE 


thing  which  is  fresh  in  the  true  sense  of  the 
word  is  that  which  has  great  potentialties 
for  ripeness  in  the  future.  Men  need  to  see, 
and  to  see  clearly,  and  they  need  to  see  in  and 
for  their  own  day.  A  man  may  look  back  a 
thousand  years  or  more  and  say  what  men 
ought  to  have  done  at  that  time.  His  vision 
may  be  clear,  but,  so  far  as  making  any  con¬ 
tribution  to  the  life  of  his  day  is  concerned,  it 
may  be  very  useless.  He  may  join  his  voice 
with  that  chorus  which  has  often  confused 
things  by  saying  that  men  of  our  age  can 
have  no  true  and  usable  vision.  He  may 
dampen  the  ardor  of  youth  by  so  doing,  and 
we  leave  it  to  him  to  meet  his  responsibility 
before  God;  but  we  charge  you,  my  young 
friends,  to  learn  to  see  things  as  they  are 
with  the  vision  of  God  and  with  a  freshness 
that  makes  that  vision  realizable  in  your  day. 

You  too,  will  find  it  a  healthful  exercise 
to  learn  to  labor  and  to  wait.  He  who  sees 
clearly  sometimes  finds  his  soul  filled  with 
righteous  indignation  at  the  slowness  with 
which  things  can  be  righted.  He  may  find 
himself  strained  almost  to  the  point  of  burst¬ 
ing  with  an  impatience  which  to  him  seems 
holy.  The  danger  is  that  he  may  lose  the 
clearness  of  his  vision  through  his  very  im¬ 
patience;  and,  losing  this,  he  may  stop  the 


OF  THE  CHURCH 


33 


labors  that  would  eventually  help  him  to  rea¬ 
lize  the  thing  for  which  his  soul  now  yearns. 
The  foregoing  is  no  suggestion  that  after  all 
an  inactive  life,  a  passive  existence,  may  be 
the  more  desirable,  or  that  it  may  even  be  ex¬ 
cusable. 

As  young  people  of  today  faring  forth 
into  the  fight  for  God,  you  have  both  the 
right  and  the  opportunity  to  set  a  new  pace 
for  the  progress  of  His  Kingdom  in  your 
day.  That  pace,  however,  will  find  its  rate 
not  in  any  paper  program  that  you  may  be 
able  to  produce,  and  to  produce  with  enthusi¬ 
asm,  but  it  will  find  its  rate  eventually 
through  the  constant  labor  which  you  put 
forth  and  through  the  grandeur  of  soul  with 
which  you  can  wait  when  others  insist  either 
upon  going  ahead  recklessly  or  giving  up  the 
work  entirely.  You  will  find  limitations 
which  seem  like  the  iron  bars  of  the  cage  to 
the  tiger  caught  full  grown  in  the  jungles. 
You  may  fight  these  limitations  if  you  will, 
but  you  had  better  outgrow  them.  Opposi¬ 
tion  feeds  on  antagonism,  and  grows  the 
stronger.  There  are  exceptions  to  this  rule, 
to  be  sure,  but  too  often  even  good  men  have 
attempted  to  run  their  affairs  by  the  excep¬ 
tion  rather  than  by  the  rule.  There  is  al¬ 
ways  an  opportunity  of  keeping  up  your  ex- 


84 


THE  CHARGE 


ercise  in  spiritual  growth  which  makes  you 
strong  even  while  the  limitations  are  closely 
drawn  about  you,  and  then  it  is  a  good  thing 
to  remember  that  you  are  young,  that  much 
of  that  which  you  possess  is,  after  all,  still 
potential  and,  for  aught  we  know,  may  need 
some  of  these  limitations  to  exercise  itself 
for  the  strength  that  will  be  needed  for  the 
work  to  be  done  when  you  are  ready  for  it. 

Seventh,  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ 
charges  you  to  show  a  proper  appreciation 
for  your  heritage.  “Neglect  not  the  gift  that 
is  in  thee,  which  was  given  thee  by  prophecy, 
with  the  laying  on  of  the  hands  of  the  pres¬ 
bytery.  Be  diligent  in  these  things;  give 
thyself  wholly  to  them;  that  thy  progress 
may  be  manifest  unto  all.  Take  heed  to  thy¬ 
self,  and  to  thy  teaching.  Continue  in  these 
things ;  for  in  doing  this  thou  shalt  save  both 
thyself  and  them  that  hear  thee.”  (I  Timothy 
4:14-16).  It  is  well  for  any  young  man  fac¬ 
ing  life  with  a  serious  purpose  to  keep  in 
mind  that,  after  all,  he  is  a  member  of  a  long 
succession  of  men  who  have  lived,  are  now 
living,  and  will  live,  and  that  he  cannot  hope 
to  do  his  best  if  he  loses  sight  of  the  contri¬ 
bution  which  those  men  have  made  who  have 
gone  before  him.  Someone  has  said  that  not 
to  neglect  the  gift  that  is  within  thee,  means 


OF  THE  CHURCH 


35 


to  keep  that  gift  bright  with  use.  We  do 
well  to  heed  this  suggestion.  Keep  your 
ability  bright  with,  and  for  use.  Do  not  sim¬ 
ply  polish  it  to  gloat  over  it  as  something 
which  gives  you  an  advantage  over  others 
whose  heritage  may  not  seem  to  be  so  worthy 
of  note  as  yours.  Perhaps  it  is  merely  not 
so  easily  traceable,  or  perhaps  they  have  been 
too  busy  doing  things  worth  while  to  trace 
out  the  accidental  features  of  their  genealo¬ 
gies. 

Anyone  who  shows  the  proper  apprecia¬ 
tion  for  his  heritage  will  be  diligent.  He  will 
exercise  himself  both  in  work  and  in  study. 
There  is  nothing  which  will  help  you  to  over¬ 
come  difficulties  quite  so  much  as  work,  and 
the  twin  sister  of  work  is  study.  You  should 
have  a  place  to  study,  and  there  should  be  a 
definite  time  that  dare  not  be  encroached 
upon,  that  you  will  set  aside  for  study,  not 
merely  to  prepare  next  Sunday’s  sermon  or 
that  extra  address,  or  talk,  or  lecture  which 
was  thrust  so  invitingly  or  so  coercively  up¬ 
on  you.  These  times  will  become  the  oases 
in  your  life, — the  time  when  you  have  slipped 
away  to  read  a  book  without  having  in  mind 
the  preparation  of  anything  for  immediate 
use, — the  time  when  you  have  taken  the  op¬ 
portunity  to  think,  to  relate  the  facts  as  you 


36 


THE  CHARGE 


have  been  discovering  them  to  each  other,  to 
yourself,  and  both  to  God.  Without  these, 
it  will  be  practically  impossible  for  you  to 
heed  the  admonition  of  Paul  to  “Take  heed 
to  thyself  and  thy  teaching.” 

Eighth,  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ 
charges  you  to  make  a  proper  estimate  of 
values.  You  will  find,  even  in  the  work  of  the 
church,  that  there  are  more  values  in  life 
than  any  one  man  can  master.  It  will  be 
necessary  for  you  to  find  the  relative  values 
of  things  and  opportunities,  and,  to  choose 
between  these  without  drawing  the  false  but 
enticing  conclusion  that  he  who  does  not 
think  just  as  you  do  has  chosen  wrongly. 
Paul  writes  to  his  son  Timothy,  “But  godli¬ 
ness  with  contentment  is  great  gain.”  (I 
Timothy  6:6).  There  have  been  men  who 
have  emphasized  godliness  with  an  admir¬ 
able  fervor  but  whose  lives  became  increas¬ 
ingly  filled  with  discontent,  and  who  in  their 
attitude  toward  others  became  increasingly 
contentious.  Men  have  admired  them  for 
their  fervor,  but,  somehow,  have  not  felt 
drawn  to  them  or  their  cause.  To  them,  god¬ 
liness  without  contentment  failed  to  become 
great  gain.  To  many,  they  seemed  godlike, 
very  much  as  a  statue  is  like  a  man  whom  it 
represents.  They  may  admire  its  grandeur 


OF  THE  CHURCH 


37 


and  even  carry  away  a  suggestion;  but  as 
for  a  definite,  warning  fellowship,  that  is 
lacking,  and  evidently  is  also  practically  im¬ 
possible.  The  great  value  of  godlikeness 
consists  in  being  like  God  in  such  a  manner 
that  when  men  see  you  do  your  works  they 
shall  praise  God.  Any  man  who  thus  esti¬ 
mates  the  values  of  life  will  awaken  some 
day  to  the  fact  that  his  godlikeness,  with  all 
the  imperfections  which  he  may  realize  as 
still  clinging  to  it,  has  been  to  him  and  to 
others  a  great  gain. 

From  time  immemorial,  the  evaluations 
which  confronted  a  minister  have  included 
that  of  money.  This  ought  never  to  be  an 
end  in  itself,  but  a  means  to  a  greater  end. 
No  man  can  afford  to  love  it  for  its  own  sake, 
and  no  minister  of  Jesus  Christ  dare  to  do 
this  if  his  ministry  is  to  remain  such  in  fact. 
Money  is  the  means  for  the  expression  of 
power.  There  are  many  good  things  that  are 
lagging  behind  today  because  of  the  lack  of 
a  little  money.  Here  is  a  young  man  who  has 
spent  years  of  time  in  perfecting  an  inven¬ 
tion.  Unfortunately,  men  wTith  much  money, 
but  with  small  souls,  have  gotten  this  young 
man  into  their  grip  because  he  lacked  money, 
and  now  they  are  attempting  to  wrest  from 
him  the  signature  that  will  convey  to  them 


38 


THE  CHARGE 


his  rights.  It  fills  one  with  righteous  indig¬ 
nation  to  think  what  an  abuse  of  the  power 
of  money  this  is ;  but  should  not  our  souls  be 
stirred  the  more  because  there  seems  to  be 
no  friend  who  had  vision  enough  to  see  what 
a  little  money  would  have  done  for  this  man, 
and,  perchance  through  him,  for  the  world. 
What  a  pity  that  the  rich  men  who  hold  the 
cudgel  over  his  head  today  are  just  short¬ 
sighted  enough  not  to  realize  that  by  their 
coercive  measures  they  are  buying  a  patent 
but  are  losing  the  soul  that  produced  the  in¬ 
vention,  and  perhaps  unfitting  it  to  do  great¬ 
er  good. 

What  is  true  in  the  business  world  is  no 
less  true  in  the  world  of  work  for  God.  In 
olden  days,  the  Jew  gave  his  one  tenth  as  a 
minimum.  In  our  days,  the  professed  Chris¬ 
tians  are  still  arguing  at  great  length  and 
with  much  dexterity  as  to  whether  or  not  a 
Christian  should  be  expected  to  give  as  much 
as  one  tenth.  There  are  vast  possibilities  ly¬ 
ing  dormant  in  many  institutions  today 
which  could  be,  and  should  be.  developed  by  a 
little  of  the  surplus  money  which  is  a  burden 
to  many  of  those  who  call  themselves  “chil¬ 
dren”  of  God.  It  is  noteworthy  that  such 
persons  seldom  refer  to  themselves  as 
“friends”  or  as  “stewards”  of  God. 


OF  THE  CHURCH 


39 


To  you  as  teachers,  the  church  must 
look,  as  to  those  who  will  lead  out  men  from 
the  imprisonment  of  a  wrong  evaluation  of 
money.  For  that  reason,  you  yourselves  dare 
not  permit  the  shackles  of  this  imprisonment 
to  be  clamped  upon  you.  In  taking  this  at¬ 
titude,  you  will  sometimes  find  yourselves 
bound  by  a  cruel  logic  which  is  erroneous  be¬ 
cause  it  does  not  consider  all  of  the  facts  en¬ 
tering  into  the  case,  a  logic  which  would 
make  you  disregard  the  value  of  money  to 
the  point  of  undercutting  your  efficiency. 
This'  you  cannot  afford  to  do.  There  is  a 
certain  amount  of  material  substance  which 
your  body  must  have  to  remain  efficient,  and 
there  is  a  certain  amount  of  material  sub¬ 
stance  which  you  as  members  of  human  so¬ 
ciety  must  have  to  remain  at  normal  effi¬ 
ciency.  In  standing  for  this  fact,  you  will 
have  to  prepare  yourselves  to  be  charged 
with  being  lovers  of  money,  on  the  one  hand, 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  you  will  need  to  guard 
yourselves  lest  you  become  such. 

While  you  cannot  escape  the  responsi¬ 
bility  of  dealing  with  estimates  of  the  more 
material  values  of  life,  the  emphasis  after 
all,  will  be  upon  the  proper  estimate  of  the 
values  of  a  godly  life.  There  is  entrusted  to 
you  that  which  is  more  valuable  than  gold, 


40 


THE  CHARGE 


in  the  “good  news”  which  you  may  bring  to 
others  with  understanding  and  with  convic¬ 
tion.  To  keep  this  message  untarnished  will 
sometimes  be  as  serious  a  problem  for  you  as 
the  solution  of  your  monetary  difficulties, 
and  perhaps  much  more  so,  because  there  are 
not  so  many  people  to  check  you  up  in  the 
progress  of  your  thinking  in  this  matter 
quite  so  accurately  or  so  promptly  as  they 
will  in  regard  to  the  more  material  values. 
Much  of  this  will  have  to  be  done  in  the 
quiet  hours  of  your  own  thinking.  Much  of 
it  will  also  be  done  in  those  hours  which  you 
will  increasingly  value  as  you,  among  your¬ 
selves  or  with  others  of  your  kind,  will  meet 
to  discuss  with  a  fraternal  frankness,  which 
should  characterize  the  ministers  of  Jesus 
Christ,  the  various  values  of  life  and  espec¬ 
ially  of  your  lives  as  workers  for  the  Author 
of  Life. 

Ninth,  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ 
charges  you  to  grow  stronger  “in  the  faith 
that  is  in  Jesus  Christ,”  (II  Timothy  2:1). 
This  strengthening  of  the  faith  that  is  with¬ 
in  Christ  Jesus  has  two  aspects.  First,  that 
you  may  receive  more  of  His  grace;  and,  in 
the  second  place,  that  you  may  be  strong 
enough  to  receive  more  of  it.  We  sometimes 
pray  with  our  lips  for  a  measure  of  strength 


OF  THE  CHURCH 


41 


which,  if  the  Master  were  actually  to  give  it 
to  us,  would  completely  overwhelm  and  crush 
us.  Therefore,  it  may  be  necessary  to  pray 
relatively  less  for  an  increase  of  that 
strength,  and  do  relatively  more  to  be  ready 
to  receive  it;  for  this  is  true,  that  all  who 
labor  in  His  Kingdom  need  that  strength,  and 
all  have  occasion  to  be  thankful  that  the 
strength  comes  through  grace  rather  than 
brute  force  or  a  semblance  of  it. 

Tenth,  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ 
charges  you  to  commit  what  you  have  re¬ 
ceived  to  “faithful  men,  who  shall  be  able  to 
teach  others  also.”  (II  Timothy  2:2).  Why 
does  Paul  say  that  it  shall  be  committed  to 
“faithful”  men?  We  might  also  ask,  “Why 
do  bankers  commit  their  money  to  faithful 
employees?”  You  will  find  that  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  taking  the  sacred  message  of 
the  Gospel  and  haranguing  it  before  men 
who  have  never  learned  to  take  the  responsi¬ 
bilities  of  life  and  use  them  faithfully.  Do 
not  waste  your  time  or  energy  in  committing 
to  them  that  which  is  sacred  to  you,  that 
they  may  not  in  turn  go  and  use  it  unfaith¬ 
fully.  This  is  quite  a  different  matter  from 
using  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  as  a  means 
of  saving  other  men.  You  as  teachers,  in 
whatsoever  positions  you  may  find  your- 


42 


THE  CHARGE 


selves  as  the  years  come  and  go,  will  have 
occasion  to  use  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ 
both  as  a  means  of  salvation  and  as  a  mes¬ 
sage  to  be  committed  to  others  who  in  turn 
are  to  pass  it  on.  It  is  in  this  second  aspect 
of  your  function  as  teachers  that  you  will 
need  to  learn  to  choose  between  those  who 
are  faithful  and  those  who  are  not.  Remem¬ 
ber  that  dependable  men  are  a  valuable  asset, 
and  that  dependability  should  be  rated  much 
more  highly  than  it  frequently  is. 

Eleventh,  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ 
charges  you  to  pay  the  price.  Paul  sums  up 
the  matter  thus  to  Timothy:  (II  Timothy 
2:8-6),  “Take  thy  part  in  suffering  hardship 
with  me  as  a  good  soldier  of  Christ  Jesus. 
No  soldier  in  service  entangleth  himself  in 
the  affairs  of  this  life  that  he  may  please 
him  who  enrolled  him  as  a  soldier,  and  if  also 
a  man  contend  in  the  games  he  is  not 
crowned  except  he  have  contended  lawfully. 
The  husbandman  that  laboreth  must  be  the 
first  to  partake  of  the  fruits.”  Paul  here 
pictures  a  soldier  as  fighting  self-forgetfully 
for  the  cause  of  his  superior;  the  man  who 
enters  the  games  as  forgetting  all  else  that 
he  may  receive  the  crown,  and  the  husband¬ 
man  as  getting  his  reward  from  the  prospect 
of  hope  while  he  labors  in  the  sweat  of  his 
brow. 


OF  THE  CHURCH 


43 


Paul  has  here  given  us  a  suggestive  pic¬ 
ture  which  is  true  to  life  still.  The  cause 
must  have  a  primary  opportunity  in  the  lives 
of  those  who  would  win;  the  goal  is  to  be 
crossed  in  such  a  way  as  to  show  fitness  for 
an  undertaking  worthy  of  great  self-denial; 
and  all  this  can  be  done  with  the  satisfaction 
in  one’s  heart  which  no  man  can  rob.  The 
husbandman  does  not  know  that  he  will  get 
a  crop  while  he  is  sowing  his  seed  with  great 
beads  of  perspiration  coursing  down  his 
cheeks ;  but  this  one  thing  he  does  know,  that 
whatsoever  may  be  the  incidents  or  the  acci¬ 
dents  which  befall  his  work,  that  he  himself 
is  the  first  to  realize  the  satisfaction  which 
comes  from  having  done  that  work  well ;  and 
when  one  pays  the  price  in  this  spirit  he 
works  not  as  a  slave  but  as  a  freedman,  who 
wills  with  the  will  of  the  Father  to  do  the 
work  which  his  Father  would  have  done. 

Twelfth,  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ 
charges  you  to  exercise  your  self-control.  In 
admonishing  his  protege  on  this  point,  Paul 
tells  Timothy  to  flee  youthful  lusts, — that  is 
the  development  of  impulses  in  such  a  way 
as  to  make  them  weaken  more  than  they 
strengthen.  The  natural  impulses  are  all 
right;  but  the  fault  may  lie  in  their  develop¬ 
ment,  and  that  is  where  the  exercise  of  self- 


44 


THE  CHARGE 


control  comes  into  its  function  and  its  right. 
Someone  asked  Bishop  McDowell  which  were 
the  peculiar  temptations  of  the  minister,  and 
he  read  him  a  catalog  of  the  sins  of  common 
humankind  and  told  him  to  magnify  these  as 
a  result  of  the  stress  that  comes  upon  the 
average  minister’s  life  and  he  would  know 
which  were  the  temptations  of  the  minister. 

We  need  to  exercise  self-control  lest  we 
develop  ourselves  wrongly;  but  we  also  need 
to  control  ourselves  in  the  spirit  of  forbear¬ 
ance.  I  suppose  that  no  one  needs  to  learn 
more  fully  or  more  definitely  than  does  a 
minister  of  Jesus  Christ  that  forbearance  is 
is  greater  than  “Rechthaberei.”  It  takes 
more  heroism  sometimes  to  think  inwardly 
with  calmness  of  mind  and  warmth  of  heart 
than  it  does  to  express!  oneself  toward  the 
outside,  especially  when  one  is  met  by  con¬ 
tentious  spirits.  Nevertheless,  self-control 
is  one  of  the  cardinal  virtues  of  one  who 
would  be  a  leader  of  those  in  the  Kingdom 
of  God  today. 

Thirteenth,  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ 
charges  you  to  keep  your  balance  in  the  midst 
of  confusing  and  disturbing  conditions  pro¬ 
duced  by  selfish  men.  “But  know  this,  that 
in  the  last  days  grievous  times  shall  come 
and  men  shall  be  lovers  of  self,  lovers  of 


OF  THE  CHURCH 


45 


money,  boastful,  haughty,  railers,  disobedi¬ 
ent  to  parents,  unthankful,  unholy,  without 
natural  affection,  implacable,  slanderous, 
without  self-control,  fierce,  no  lovers  of  good, 
traitors,  headstrong,  puffed  up,  lovers  of 
pleasure  rather  than  lovers  of  God,  holding 
a  form  of  godliness  but  having  denied  the 
power  thereof.  From  these  turn  away.”  (II 
Timothy  3:1-5). 

Any  daily  or  any  weekly  newspaper,  any 
magazine,  and  practically  every  religious 
journal  that  you  might  have  picked  up  this 
morning,  contains,  in  all  probability,  some¬ 
thing  which  would  remind  you  of  the  fact 
that  this  catalog  of  human  traits  has  not 
yet  been  exhausted.  If  a  man  needs  to  turn 
away  from  the  fellowship  of  such  types  of 
mind,  he  needs  also  to  remember  that  he 
must  have  something  more  worth  while  to 
turn  to  in  his  thinking.  You  will  not  be  able 
to  turn  away  from  people  of  this  kind,  so  far 
as  a,ny  possible  relationship  with  them  is 
concerned.  If  a  man  thinks  that  he  can  go 
through  life  today  without  dealing  with  peo¬ 
ple  of  this  kind,  he  has  no  business  to  enter 
the  ministry  of  Jesus  Christ.  You  may  be 
compelled  to  face  them  many  a  time  as  a 
man  among  men,  but  in  your  heart  you  must 
not  be  turning  into  the  path  which  they  are 


46 


THE  CHARGE 


pursuing.  Therefore,  the  church  of  Jesus 
Christ  charges  you  not  to  become  ascetics, 
but  to  keep  your  balance  in  the  midst  of  con¬ 
fusing  and  disturbing  conditions  produced  by 
selfish  men;  for,  after  all,  the  essence  of  all 
of  this  catalog  which  Paul  has  outlined  and 
which  might  have  been  enlarged  upon,  is  sel¬ 
fishness.  Whether  it  parades  itself  under 
some  fellowship  of  living  which  is  outspoken¬ 
ly  atheistic,  or  whether  it  hides  itself  behind 
the  broad  phylacteries  of  a  self-serving  Phar¬ 
isaic  spirit  is  quite  incidental.  You  cannot 
escape  dealing  with  selfish  people,  and  you 
must  learn  to  deal  with  their  selfishness  no 
matter  how  they  propose  to  hide  it  behind 
innocent  looking  incidents. 

Fourteenth,  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ 
charges  you  to  meet  uncertainty  with  stabil¬ 
ity.  “Yea,  and  all  that  would  live  godly  lives 
in  Christ  Jesus  shall  suffer  persecution  by 
evil  men,  and  imposters  shall  wax  worse  and 
worse,  deceiving  and  being  deceived.  But 
abide  thou  in  the  things  which  thou  hast 
learned  and  which  thou  hast  been  assured  of, 
knowing  of  whom  thou  hast  learned  them; 
and  that  from  a  babe  thou  hast  known  the 
sacred  writings  which  are  able  to  make  thee 
wise  unto  salvation  through  faith  which  is  in 
Jesus  Christ/’  (II  Timothy  3:12-15). 


OF  THE  CHURCH 


47 


A  young  man  was  once  asked  whether 
he  was  considering  the  ministry  as  a  possible 
vocation  for  life,  and  he  answered  with  more 
force  than  eloquence,  “Not  on  your  life.  Do 
you  suppose  that  I  would  care  to  be  chased 
around  like  a  rabbit  with  a  hunter’s  dogs 
pursuing  him?”  This  young  man  had  rea¬ 
lized  only  one  phase  of  the  spirit  which  Paul 
touches  in  the  foregoing  quotation,  namely, 
the  fact  that  a  devotee  to  the  cause  of  Jesus 
Christ  must  expect  persecution,  must  expect 
to  be  “chased  about,”  to  use  the  young  man’s 
own  words ;  but  he  had  failed  to  realize  that 
the  uncertainties  produced  by  those  minds 
who  need  Jesus  Christ  and  His  Gospel  may 
be  met  by  the  stability  furnished  by  His 
Gospel.  Moreover,  he  had  yet  to  learn  that 
persecution  becomes  the  lot  of  every  one  who 
undertakes  to  serve  mankind  unselfishly, 
whether  he  be  a  minister  of  the  Gospel  or  not. 

There  is  no  particular  glory  in  having  to 
suffer  persecution,  for  he  who  inclines  to 
glory  in  that  fact  is  in  danger  of  approach¬ 
ing  the  point  where  Jesus  spoke  of  men  as 
having  received  their  reward;  nor  is  there 
any  discredit  in  being  persecuted,  provided 
the  persecutors  have  to  be  untrue  to  them¬ 
selves  and  to  God  in  carrying  out  their  ac¬ 
tivities.  It  is  the  business  of  ministers  of 


48 


THE  CHARGE 


Jesus  Christ  to  learn  to  take  for  granted  a 
reasonable  amount  of  persecution  and  to 
meet  it,  not  in  the  spirit  of  persecution,  but 
in  the  spirit  of  a  stable  mind  which  knows 
with  whom  it  is  to  deal  eventually. 

Fifteenth,  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ 
charges  you  to  give  worthy  expression  to  the 
sound  instruction  which  you  have  received. 
Men  of  vision  have  been  appealed  to,  to  make 
possible  the  advantages  which  you  have  been 
enjoying.  Many  of  them  know  full  well  that 
they  can  never  reap  directly  what  they  have 
sown.  They  have  passed  it  on  to  you  through 
their  means  and  good  will,  and  through  their 
faith  and  prayers.  They  have  a  right  to  ex¬ 
pect  you  to  give  worthy  expression  to  that 
which  you  have  received  through  their  sac¬ 
rificial  efforts.  Back  of  them  stands  the 
Christ,  who  made  possible  not  only  what  has 
come  to  you  directly  but  also  the  change  in 
their  own  hearts,  that  they  should  will  to  do 
the  thing  which  they  have  done  for  your 
good. 

You  cannot  be  true  to  yourselves  or  to 
your  benefactors  by  accepting  this  privilege 
and  keeping  it  to  yourselves.  Neither  can  you 
face  yourselves  like  men  with  self-respect 
that  is  worthy  of  the  best  of  us,  and  not  give 
expression  to  that  which  has  come  to  you 


OF  THE  CHURCH 


49 


with  a  dignity  and  an  inviting  grandeur  that 
is  worthy  of  the  best  of  men.  If  a  man  be 
given  a  great  material  treasure  and  he  should 
dilly-dally  with  it,  men  would  charge  him 
with  being  untrue  to  his  trust.  What,  then, 
can  you  expect  men  to  say  when  those  to 
whom  have  been  given  unusual  opportunities 
accept  as  a  light  thing  the  message  of  God 
as  committed  to  them? 

We  have  thus  reviewed  at  some  length 
the  charge  of  the  church  to  you  as  those  who 
are  just  merging  from  the  ranks  of  the 
learner  into  the  ranks  of  the  teacher.  We 
shall  now  assume  that  your  school  days  have 
become  distinctly  a  matter  of  the  past,  and 
that  you  are  full-fledged  members  in  the 
ranks  of  those  whose  business  it  is  to  give 
more  than  to  receive,  to  teach  more  than  to 
be  taught. 


CHAPTER  TWO 


AS  MEMBERS  OF  A  GROUP  OF 
TEACHERS 

First,  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ 
charges  you  to  have  a  proper  regard  for  each 
other.  Rebuke  not  an  elder,  but  exhort  him 
as  a  father,  and  younger  men  as  brethren.” 
(I  Timothy  5:1).  “Let  the  elders  that  rule 
well,  become  counted  worthy  of  double  honor, 
especially  those  who  labor  in  the  word  and  in 
teaching,  for  the  scripture  saith,  Thou  shalt 
not  muzzle  the  ox  when  he  treadeth  out  the 
corn,  and- the  laborer  is  worthy  of  his  hire.’ 
Against  an  elder  receive  not  an  accusation 
except  at  the  mouth  of  two  or  three  wit¬ 
nesses.”  (I  Timothy  5:17-19). 

You  will  find  yourselves  distinctly  asso¬ 
ciated  with  men  of  like  social  standing  and 
of  like  nominal  occupation,  and  it  will  become 
a  part  of  your  work  increasingly  to  asso¬ 
ciate  yourselves  properly  with  these  men. 
The  regard  of  the  oriental  for  the  elder,  in 
years  as  well  as  position,  is  not  unworthy  of 
keen  and  searching  regard  by  younger  men 
of  our  day.  The  attitude  toward  men  of 
your  own  years  will  in  a  large  measure  con- 


50 


OF  THE  CHURCH 


51 


vince  the  world  of  your  worthiness  as  lead¬ 
ers.  There  is  perhaps  no  more  powerful  ser¬ 
mon  than  that  which  expresses  the  attitude 
of  one’s  heart  toward  those  who  are  in  the 
ranks  with  him;  and  you  will  find  larger 
audiences  listening  to  and  understanding  this 
sermon  than  you  can  ever  hope  to  have  no 
matter  what  the  newspapers  may  find  occa¬ 
sion  to  say  about  the  size  of  your  church  or 
tabernacle. 

The  impulsiveness  of  youth  sometimes 
makes  great  waste  by  making  great  haste  in 
judging  the  motives  of  others.  This  spirit  is 
a  feeling  which  the  nominal  leaders  of  the 
church  of  Jesus  Christ  unfortunately  some¬ 
times  share  with  others.  Prejudice  and  par¬ 
tiality  all  too  frequently,  in  the  vernacular 
of  the  colored  minister,  become  the  “upset¬ 
ting  sins”  of  leaders  in  the  church.  Flee 
them! 

This  prejudice  and  this  partiality  some¬ 
times  show  themselves  in  the  way  in  which 
associates  are  preferred  as  co-laborers.  It 
will  become  your  privilege,  yea,  your  reward, 
to  wield  your  influence  so  that  other  young 
people  shall  come  into  the  office  of  teacher  in 
the  church  of  Jesus  Christ;  but  even  in  the 
ardor  of  increasing  the  number  of  those  who 
shall  bear  the  good  news  to  the  world,  do  not 


52 


THE  CHARGE 


hurry  anyone  into  the  office  of  teacher.  Paul 
admonishes  not  to  lay  hands  hastily  on  any 
man,  and  I  sometimes  wonder  whether  pre¬ 
judice  and  partiality  have  not  shown  them¬ 
selves  in  this  respect  as  viciously  as  they 
have  in  the  spirit  of  elimination.  No  matter 
in  which  direction  this  spirit  may  manifest 
itself,  one  of  its  gravest  dangers  consists  in 
the  fact  that  it  leads  a  mam  to  yoke  himself 
with  sinners.  They  may  be  “respectable 
sinners,”  yea,  even  dignitaries  in  the  church, 
but  no  man  can  afford  to  yield  to  that  temp¬ 
tation. 

To  stand  in  the  relationship  of  fine  com¬ 
radeship  with  our  fellow  teachers  is  a  thing 
worthy  to  be  sought  after,  and  should  not 
lightly  be  given  up  because  our  own  weak¬ 
nesses  and  the  limitations  of  our  fellow  la¬ 
borers  so  often  cause  us  to  stumble  in  this 
regard.  You  will  do  well  to  harbor  care¬ 
fully  in  your  minds  this  idea  of  comradeship 
at  the  start  of  your  ministry. 

Second,  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ 
charges  you  to  maintain  a  sober  attitude  in 
the  midst  of  intellectual  and  spiritual  in¬ 
sobriety.  “I  charge  thee  in  the  sight  of  God, 
and  of  Christ  Jesus,  who  shall  judge  the  liv¬ 
ing  and  the  dead,  and  by  his  appearing  and 
his  Kingdom :  preach  the  word ;  be  urgent  in 


OF  THE  CHURCH 


53 


season  and  out  of  season;  reprove  (bring  to 
the  proof),  rebuke,  warn  with  all  long-suf¬ 
fering  and  teaching.  For  the  time  will  come 
when  they  will  not  endure  the  sound  doc¬ 
trine  (healthful  teaching),  but,  having  itch¬ 
ing  ears,  will  heap  to  themselves  teachers 
after  their  own  lusts;  and  will  turn  away 
their  ears  from  the  truth,  and  turn  aside 
unto  fables.  But  be  thou  sober  in  all  things, 
suffering  hardship.  Do  the  work  of  an 
evangelist ;  fulfil  thy  ministry.” 

Paul  seems  very  much  in  earnest  about 
this  charge,  and  well  may  he  be.  Many  a  man 
has  broken  down  the  possibilities  of  being  a 
helpful,  spiritual  leader  by  affirming  that 
everybody  who  did  not  agree  with  him  was 
chargeable  with  the  wrongs  recounted  here. 
The  emphasis  is,  of  course,  on  a  sober  atti¬ 
tude  in  the  midst  of  confusion  and  spiritual 
insobriety.  We  are  living  in  a  day  when  the 
world  has  realized  the  evil  of  physical  inso¬ 
briety  to  an  extent  that  only  a  generation 
ago  would  have  been  considered  unbelievable ; 
and  yet  we  are  also  living  in  an  age  when 
insobriety  shown  in  things  intellectual  and 
things  spiritual  is  a  matter  of  pride  with 
many.  So  the  charge  of  Paul  may  as  well  be 
accepted  by  us  here  as  a  personal  word  of 
admonition  from  the  lips  of  one  authorized 
to  speak. 


54 


THE  CHARGE 


Much  odium  has  been  heaped  upon  min¬ 
isters  because  of  this  type  of  insobriety.  You 
may  have  to  bear  some  of  that  odium.  Be 
that  as  it  may,  do  not  permit  it  to  keep  you 
from  maintaining  a  sober  mind.  You  are  not 
responsible  for  the  evil  results  which  you 
have  to  suffer  as  a  result  of  unsober  com¬ 
radeship  nominally;  but  you  are  responsible 
for  the  attitude  of  mind  in  which  you  meet 
the  world  today  as  it  needs  the  sobering 
gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  best  way  in 
which  you  can  meet  a  condition  like  this  is 
to  keep  doing  the  work  of  the  bringer  of  the 
good  news,  God’s  news. 

If  men  were  kept  going  during  the  war 
by  the  cry  of  “Carry  On”  and  “Let’s  Go,” 
then  surely  the  ministers  of  Jesus  Christ  may 
encourage  themselves  and  minister  to  each 
other  by  reminding  themselves  of  the  fact 
that  it  behooves  them  to  keep  doing  the  work 
of  those  who  bear  good  news  to  others. 
While  others  may  depreciate  the  value  of  the 
gospel  through  insobriety,  and  you  may  at 
times  feel  like  yielding,  remember  this,  that 
your  other  alternative  is,  “To  fulfil  thy  min¬ 
istry.”  Many  a  man  has  added  such  dignity 
and  such  glory  to  that  which  he  was  doing, 
by  the  way  in  which  he  did  it,  that,  some¬ 
how,  in  spite  of  the  unusual  handicaps,  he 


OF  THE  CHURCH 


55 


won  the  day;  not  in  such  a  way  as  to  glory 
in  it,  but  so  as  to  have  proven  himself  a  good 
and  faithful  workman. 

Third,  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ 
charges  you  neither  to  dominate  nor  to  be 
dominated.  The  attitude  of  Jesus  has  always 
been,  that  the  man  who  would  be  a  real  leader 
was  to  render  a  service  which  would  morally 
compel  men  to  follow  him ;  and  linked  closely 
together  with  this  idea  was  that  which  he 
gave  not  only  as  an  opinion  but  as  a  prom¬ 
ise,  namely,  that  the  truth  of  which  He  was 
the  personal  representative  should  make  men 
free. 

You  may  be  thrown  into  positions  where 
a  large  portion  of  your  work  will  consist  in 
what  men  today  call  organization,  and  one  of 
the  chief  temptations  of  organizations  is  the 
spirit  of  domination;  but  no  man  can  be  a 
self-centered  dominator  over  his  fellow  work¬ 
ers  in  the  church  of  Jesus  Christ  and  expect 
to  accomplish  anything  really  worth  while  in 
the  end.  On  the  other  hand,  no  man  need 
think  that  by  cringing  to  the  domination  of 
others  he  will  fulfil  the  desires  of  the  Master 
in  his  own  life.  We  are  to  be  fellows,  one 
with  the  other,  men  in  the  ranks,  and  each 
one  is  called  to  a  position  where  he  needs  by 
force  of  circumstances  to  organize  the  think- 


56 


THE  CHARGE 


in g  about  his  own  work  in  order  that  there 
may  be  orderly  progress.  Let  him  do  it  in  the 
spirit  of  a  servant  of  us  all,  rather  than  the 
dictator  to  us  all;  and  let  him  who  has  not 
been  called  to  summarize  the  plans  which  are 
needed  for  an  orderly  progress,  fit  himself 
into  his  rank  as  one  who  knows  his  place 
and  fills  it  well  in  the  spirit  of  freedom 
granted  by  the  Master,  and  not  in  the  spirit 
of  the  slave  who  ducks  his  head  and  obeys. 
You  always  have  a  right  to  do  the  right,  and 
essentially  there  is  no  greater  freedom  than 
that,  however  great  the  accompanying  handi¬ 
caps  may  be. 

When  we  have  learned  to  make  the  com¬ 
bination  properly,  we  have  also  learned  to 
understand  the  nobility  of  the  term  fellow¬ 
ship.  It  is  then  that  men  may  walk  in  dif¬ 
ferent  nominal  ranks  and  still  walk  with  each 
other  and  with  others  in  that  noblest  of  all 
ranks,  the  rank  of  Christian  fellowship.  It 
is  this  that  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ  has 
a  right  to  expect  of  us,  and,  therefore,  it  be¬ 
comes  a  salient  portion  of  her  charge  to  us 
as  teachers. 

When  we  have  become  conscious  of  this 
fellowship  or  at  least  when  we  have  learned 
to  practise  it,  we  have  reached  that  stage 
when  nominal  position  becomes  an  incident, 


OF  THE  CHURCH 


57 


when  it  no  longer  stands  in  our  way  to  meet 
each  other  frankly  and  helpfully.  We  have 
then  reached  the  stage  where  we  learn  to 
stimulate  each  other.  You  will  find  in  your 
ministry  that  one  of  the  privileges  of  your 
work  will  be,  to  become  stimulators  of  each 
other.  Each  one  of  you  will  find  that  there 
are  days,  as  a  good,  Scotch  Presbyterian  used 
to  put  it,  “When  your  clocks  do  not  strike 
twelve.”  There  will  be  days  when  you  will 
raise  serious  questions  as  to  the  wisdom  of 
your  choice.  If  then  a  fellow  minister,  a  man 
who  does  not  merely  theorize  but  who  comes 
as  one  who  understands,  brings  to  you  the 
stimulus  of  new  hopes  and  of  a  greater  vis¬ 
ion,  he  will  appear  to  you,  what  in  fact  he  is, 
an  angel  of  God. 

What  you  need,  others  need ;  and  the  day 
will  come  when  your  own  life  will  be  full  of 
enthusiasm,  full  of  buoyancy  and  hopeful¬ 
ness,  and  you  will  need  to  meet  some  other 
member  of  your  group  whose  head  hangs  in 
discouragement,  whose  heart  droops  with 
heaviness;  and  then  you  will  have  that  rare 
privilege  of  becoming  a  stimulator  yourself, 
one  who  can  teach  the  discouraged  to  pray 
again,  who  can  encourage  him  whose  heart 
has  grown  weak  to  take  new  heart  and  labor 
on  with  new  enthusiasm. 


58 


THE  CHARGE 


These  things  cannot  be  done  when  your 
mind  is  filled  with  the  thoughts,  either  of 
the  dominator  or  of  the  slave;  but  they  can 
be  done,  and  be  done  grandly  and  beautifully, 
when  you  have  realized  the  spirit  of  fellow¬ 
ship  in  the  truest  sense  of  the  word. 

Fourth,  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ 
charges  you  to  “carry  together.”  You  are 
members  of  a  group,  and,  as  such,  you  are  es¬ 
sential  parts  in  the  group.  One  of  you  may 
be  a  hand,  and  another  an  eye,  still  another, 
some  other  member  of  the  “body  of  Christ.” 
The  business  of  us  all,  as  members,  is  that 
each  of  us  shall  so  perform  his  functions 
that,  combined  with  the  performances  and 
functions  of  others,  the  work  intended  by  the 
head  shall  be  done. 

You  will  learn  to  encourage  your  mem¬ 
bers  to  give  to  missions,  to  education,  to  good 
works  of  all  kinds,  and  will  meet  their  objec¬ 
tion  that  what  each  can  do  will  amount  to 
little,  by  saying,  “Yes,  but  if  you  all  carry 
together  the  little  that  each  can  do,  the  great 
things  which  God  wants  done  will  come  to 
pass.” 

What  you  encourage  those  whom  you 
are  teaching  to  do,  will  mean  infinitely  more 
if  you  have  learned  to  do  it  among  your¬ 
selves  before.  If  there  are  four  small 


OF  THE  CHURCH 


59 


churches  in  a  small  community  filled  with 
small  minded  ministers,  they  can  produce  a 
world  of  trouble;  but  no  matter  how  small 
the  community  and  how  small  the  churches, 
if  the  ministers  have  learned  to  “carry  to¬ 
gether”,  that  community  and  its  churches 
will  be  re-born  and  a  new  day  will  come  to 
them  all.  Perhaps  there  is  no  better  place 
of  trying  this  out  than  in  our  small  communi¬ 
ties,  such  as  you,  as  beginners,  are  likely  to 
enter  in  the  early  days  of  your  career ;  and  it 
is  well  to  remember  at  the  beginning  of  your 
work  that  it  is  more  noble  and  more  Christ- 
like  to  be  ministers  who  “carry  together”  in 
the  spirit  of  unselfishness  than  to  be  such  as 
scatter  abroad  that  which  has  been  carried 
together,  no  matter  how  much  momentary 
notoriety  the  latter  course  may  bring. 


CHAPTER  THREE 


AS  LEADERS  OF  GROUPS 

First,  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ 
charges  you  to  pray  for  your  groups.  It  will 
be  worth  your  while  to  learn  to  pray  earnest¬ 
ly  for  your  group  or  groups.  That  very 
earnestness,  linked  with  communion  with 
God,  will  deepen  your  insight  both  into  the 
difficulties  and  the  possibilities  within  your 
group. 

It  will  also  be  a  profitable  undertaking 
for  you  to  pray  gratefully  for  those  of  your 
group.  Many  a  man  has  overcome  serious 
difficulties  because  he  has  learned  to  find 
some  one  thing  in  some  opponent  to  his 
work  for  which  he  could  be  profoundly 
thankful.  It  teaches  one  to  see  the  good  as 
good,  irrespective  of  the  hand  which  happens 
to  bear  it  for  the  moment.  Many  a  man  can 
discover  diamonds  when  well  polished  and 
properly  set,  who  might  stumble  over  dia¬ 
monds  in  the  rough  unawares.  What  is  true 
of  diamonds  is  no  less  true  of  human  souls. 
A  sufficient  amount  of  gratitude,  especially 
of  the  right  quality,  will  teach  you  to  discov¬ 
er  many  human  “diamonds  in  the  rough.” 


60 


OF  THE  CHURCH 


61 


Therefore,  gratitude  is  a  quality  which  es¬ 
pecially  the  young  minister  or  teacher  will  do 
well  to  develop  constantly  and  persistently. 

You  can  afford  to  learn  to  pray  for  all 
manner  of  men  according  to  their  needs,  re¬ 
membering  that  if  a  man’s  needs  were  differ¬ 
ent  than  they  now  are,  he  might  act  much 
differently  from  the  way  in  which  he  now 
acts.  If  you  are  to  be  a  leader,  you  will  need 
to  learn  to  lead  people  out  of  their  difficul¬ 
ties.  You  will  need  to  learn  to  understand 
their  difficulties.  There  is  no  more  profit¬ 
able  and  no  more  productive  method  of 
learning  to  understand  other  men’s  needs 
than  through  prayer. 

In  learning  to  pray  effectively  for  others, 
one  does  well  to  remember  that  when  we 
reach  the  point  where  we  begin  to  pray  for 
men  to  God  with  the  same  kind  of  interest 
which  God  has  in  them,  that  we  have  then 
virtually  clasped  hands  with  God  for  the  pur¬ 
pose  of  meeting  the  needs  for  which  we  have 
begun  to  pray.  It  is  remarkable  beyond 
comparison,  and  beyond  the  possibility  of 
description  in  words,  the  change  such  prayer 
may  make  in  your  attitude  as  leaders  toward 
men  who  need  your  leadership. 

Second,  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ 
charges  you  to  put  your  group  in  mind  of  the 


62 


THE  CHARGE 


things  which  are  wholesome  and  necessary 
for  them.  “If  thou  shalt  put  the  brethren 
in  mind  of  these  things,  thou  shalt  be  a  good 
minister  of  Christ  Jesus,  nourished  in  the 
words  of  the  Faith  and  of  the  good  doctrine 
which  thou  hast  followed  until  now.”  (I  Tim¬ 
othy  4:6).  Let  me  remind  you  again  that 
until  the  present  you  have  followed  health¬ 
ful  and  health  bringing  teachings  that  have 
so  inspired  you  as  to  make  you  want  to  com¬ 
mit  your  lives  to  the  bringing  of  this  kind  of 
news  to  other  men  who  need  it.  These  things 
are  as  wholesome  and  as  necessarv  for  them 
as  they  have  been  for  you. 

There  is  a  peculiar  fascination  in  being 
put  into  the  place  where  one  can  do  this  kind 
of  work.  There  will  be  every  opportunity  for 
you  to  draw  upon  all  of  your  various  re¬ 
sources.  There  is  no  field  in  which  original¬ 
ity  will  find  a  larger  place;  but  we  will  need 
to  remember,  as  James  Denny  has  reminded 
us  when  he  says,  “What  we  have  to  do  in 
preaching  is  not  to  be  original,  but  to  make 
the  obvious  arresting.”  This  means  that 
you  may  remind  your  groups  of  the  things 
which  are  wholesome  and  necessary  in  such 
a  way  as  to  arrest  rather  than  to  divert  their 
attention,  and  thus  make  them  desire  to  ac¬ 
cept  that  which  you  have  committed  unto 
them. 


OF  THE  CHURCH 


63 


All  of  your  training,  in  the  public 
schools,  both  grade  and  high,  in  the  college 
and  in  the  seminary,  will  come  into  play  when 
you  face  groups  definitely  for  the  purpose  of 
convincing  them  collectively  and  individually 
of  the  worthwhileness  and  the  needfulness  of 
your  message  for  them.  In  fact,  there  is  no 
type  of  exercise  which  you  may  have  gotten 
and  which  is  usable  anj^where  that  may  not 
come  into  play  as  you  carry  this  matter  out. 
I  sometimes  think  that  every  minister  would 
do  well  to  take  a  good  thorough  course  in 
what  we  today  call  “salesmanship”,  in  order 
that  he  might  be  in  the  best  possible  posi¬ 
tion  of  reminding  his  group  of  the  things 
that  they  need  to  know  and  possess  for  their 
own  good. 

Third,  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ 
charges  you  to  establish  right  relationships 
between  socially  separated  groups.  In  Paul’s 

day  the  question  of  slavery  was  scarcely  even 
an  open  question.  Most  of  the  men  of  the 
Roman  Empire  were  slaves,  and  yet  Paul 
gave  slavery  as  an  institution  one  of  its  first 
death-blows  by  the  way  in  which  he  dealt 
with  Philemon  in  regard  to  his  slave,  Onesi- 
mus.  In  his  day,  likewise  the  matter  of  great 
riches,  and  any  ethical  responsibility  connect¬ 
ed  therewith,  was  scarcely  ever  touched  up- 


64 


THE  CHARGE 


on,  and  yet  Paul  dared  to  put  the  members  of 
the  Christian  church  who  were  possessors  of 
great  wealth  face  to  face  with  the  fact  that 
monetary  possessions  are  insignificant  things 
as  compared  to  the  riches  which  flow  from 
God. 

These  were  ideas  which  Paul  infused 
into  the  social  body  of  his  day ;  but  they  were 
ideas  with  the  power  of  growth,  and  while 
they  have  not  accomplished  everything,  nor 
have  succeeded  in  producing  an  Utopia,  even 
more  than  eighteen  hundred  years  later,  they 
are  indicative  of  the  kind  of  thinking  which 
any  leader  of  a  group  should  do  in  order  that 
eventually  right  relationships  may  be  estab¬ 
lished  between  socially  separated  groups. 

As  you  fare  forth  into  the  ministry  of 
Jesus  Christ  in  this  year  of  our  Lord,  1922, 
the  air  is  full  of  discordant  notes,  reminding 
us  of  the  fact  that  there  still  exist  social  dis¬ 
harmonies  of  an  acute  type.  I  do  not  sus¬ 
pect  that  anyone  of  you  will  bring  us  a 
panacea  for  this  condition  of  social  ills,  but 
I  charge  all  of  you  to  take  the  steps  which 
are  necessary  to  further  the  spirit  which  will 
help  men  to  get  together.  There  is  no  dearth 
for  a  field  in  which  to  find  an  opportunity  of 
showing  this  spirit,  but  there  has  been  a 
dearth  of  men  who  have  had  both  the  vision 


OF  THE  CHURCH 


65 


and  the  patience  to  undertake  the  promotion 
of  that  spirit  which  will  get  men  together, 
irrespective  of  what  groups  they  may  belong 
to,  and  to  get  them  together  as  men. 

Fourth,  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ 
charges  you  to  be  masters  in  dealing  with 
trifling  minds.  “Of  these  things  put  them 
in  remembrance,  charging  them  in  the  sight 
of  the  Lord,  that  they  strive  not  about  words 
to  no  profit,  to  the  subverting  of  them  that 
hear.  Give  diligence  to  presenting  thyself 
approved  unto  God,  a  workman  that  needeth 
not  to  be  ashamed,  handling  aright  the  word 
of  truth  (holding  a  straight  course)  ;  but 
shun  profane  babblings,  for  they  will  per¬ 
suade  further  unto  ungodliness,  and  their 
word  will  eat  (spread)  as  doth  a  gangrene/’ 

The  nervous  strain  through  which  the 
world  has  gone,  has  undoubtedly  fostered  the 
propensity  of  trifling  minds.  Their  means  of 
expression  and  their  occasion  for  so  doing 
cannot  be  numbered.  Anyone  with  an  itch¬ 
ing  for  publicity  grabs  some  idea, — ancient, 
modem  or  impossible,  and  promotes  it  with 
more  vigor  than  judgment,  and  with  more 
show  of  the  truth  than  honesty.  The  imme¬ 
diate  results  are  often  confusing  because  he 
seems  to  have  struck  the  chord  of  a  popular 
need  when,  in  fact,  he  has,  in  many  cases, 


66 


THE  CHARGE 


merely  struck  the  chord  of  present  excita¬ 
bility. 

To  be  a  master  under  such  conditions 
means  that  we  learn  to  emphasize  the  sta¬ 
bility  of  God  in  dealing  with  instability  in 
men.  “The  Lord  knoweth  them  that  are  His, 
and  let  every  man  that  nameth  the  name  of 
the  Lord  depart  from  unrighteousness.”  If 
you  are  going  to  be  a  master  in  a  situation 
which  confuses  many  minds,  you  will  need  to 
learn  to  judge  whether  the  expression  of  any 
would-be  leader  is  right  or  not.  We  cannot 
always,  in  a  moment,  tell  what  God  clearly 
knows  as  to  whether  or  not  the  promoter  of 
a  movement  may  belong  to  God,  nor  need  we 
be  able  to  tell  in  a  moment;  and  that  is  just 
the  reason  why  we  need  to  exercise  ourselves 
so  that  we  may  remain  in  the  position  of  a 
master  of  the  situation  in  dealing  with  men 
who  are  unscrupulous  enough  to  trifle  with 
things  intellectual  and  spiritual  in  a  time 
when  stability  of  minds  and  hearts  are  so 
needful. 

Fifth,  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ 
charges  you  to  teach  men  the  need  of  orderly 
leadership.  Human  society  has  long  ago 
learned  that  orderliness  is  a  prime  necessity 
for  its  continuation  and  its  growth.  Paul 
charges  Titus  to  remind  men  of  the  fact  that 


OF  THE  CHURCH 


67 


they  need  to  be  in  subjection  to  their  rulers. 
Today,  we  would  charge  men  to  remember 
that  it  behooves  them  to  be  law  abiding  citi¬ 
zens.  We  realize  in  the  home,  in  the  factory, 
in  the  mart  and  in  the  shop,  in  the  school  and 
in  the  church,  that  there  must  be  order  of 
procedure,  and  that  any  man  who  puts  him¬ 
self  above  the  order  of  things  must  give  evi¬ 
dence  that  he  is  obeying  the  higher  order,  or 
he  stamps  himself  as  unworthy  of  belonging 
to  the  social  order  in  which  he  finds  himself. 

What  is  true  of  our  relationship  to  men 
is  no  less  true  of  our  relationship  to  God.  In 
your  ministry  you  will  probably  find  among 
men  more  real  difficulty  to  find  a  deep  and 
abiding  satisfaction  because  they  have  not 
properly  developed  their  sense  of  orderliness 
in  their  relationship  with  God  than  for  any 
other  reason. 

The  best  way  of  teaching  men  this  need 
of  an  orderly  relationship  with  others  and 
with  God  is  by  doing  the  things  which  are 
good  and  profitable  for  human  kind,  and  by 
promptly  disengaging  yourself  from  the  un¬ 
profitable  activities  of  people. 

We  all  know  that  human  laws  and  regu¬ 
lations  are  imperfect,  and,  therefore,  subject 
to  change;  but  we  also  know,  or  learn  to 
know,  sooner  or  later,  that  until  we  have  a 


68 


THE  CHARGE 


substitute  for  them,  which  we  know  to  be 
better  and  of  whose  value  we  can  convince 
other  honest  men,  that  we  do  best  to  abide  by 
the  order  that  exists.  This  course  is  more 
profitable  than  vain  disputation,  and  espec¬ 
ially  than  the  vainglorious  discussion  of  the 
things  which  we  do  not  have  the  moral  cour¬ 
age  to  lay  hands  on  effectively. 

Someone  recently  raised  the  question 
whether  the  church  of  today  would  dare  to 
face  the  social  problem,  and  someone  else  ef¬ 
fectively  answered  it  by  asking,  “Dare  the 
church  not  face  it?”  It  is  not  a  question  of 
whether  or  not  you  will  teach  men  the  need 
of  orderly  leadership.  It  is  a  question  of 
whether  or  not  you  will  show  them  an  order¬ 
ly  leadership.  When  once  they  feel  that  you 
are  living  this  principle,  they  will  give  you 
an  opportunity  to  teach  them  to  do  so,  like¬ 
wise. 

Sixth,  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ 
charges  you  to  look  upon  your  parish  as 
yours  to  serve.  The  young  minister  who  re¬ 
fused  to  call  the  group  whom  it  was  his  duty 
to  serve,  his  parish,  because  he  said  that  it 
could  be  called  his  in  no  sense  in  which  the 
pronoun  was  ordinarily  used,  is  not  so  far 
wrong.  It  was  his  parish  to  be  sure,  but  only 
in  so  far  as  he  was  their  leader,  or  servant 


OF  THE  CHURCH 


69 


and  master  and  teacher  and  pastor.  In 
short,  theirs  upon  whom  they  could  call  to 
lead  them  out  of  the  lower  into  the  higher, 
out  of  the  darkness  into  the  light.  When 
anyone  takes  this  attitude,  he  will  relieve 
himself  and  others  of  the  embarrassment  of 
ever  making  unideal  comparisons  as  to  the 
apparent  advantages  of  his  field,  or  group,  or 
pastorate  over  that  of  a  fellow  servant. 


/ 


CHAPTER  FOUR 


AS  SERVANTS  OF  GOD 

First,  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ 
charges  you  to  show  Him  due  confidence. 
As  prospective  individual  teachers,  as  teach¬ 
ers  among  other  teachers,  as  leaders  of 
groups,  you  have  been,  and  are,  and  will  be, 
constantly  reminded  of  the  fact  that  you  are 
dealing  with  men  as  beings  in  whom  God  is 
supremely  interested.  No  matter  how  deeply 
you  may  have  been  engrossed  in  your  studies, 
and  how  thoroughly  your  attention  may  be 
arrested  by  the  interesting  things  which  you 
will  find  in  your  field  of  labor,  and  how  fully 
you  may  become  absorbed  in  the  solution  of 
the  problems  which  you  will  find  ready  to 
meet  you,  you  will  find  yourself  reminded 
again  and  again  that,  after  all,  you  are  a  ser¬ 
vant  of  the  Living  God. 

If  you  do  your  work  well,  you  will  re¬ 
ceive  the  reward  of  an  inward  and  abiding 
satisfaction  which  no  one  can  take  from  you 
as  long  as  you  meet  God  with  all  due  confi¬ 
dence,  that  is,  the  kind  of  confidence  of 
which  He  is  worthy.  Perhaps  there  is  no 
one  who  will  detect  whether  or  not  you  pos- 


70 


OF  THE  CHURCH 


71 


sess  this  confidence  quite  so  quickly  as  the 
so-called  layman,  that  is,  the  member  of  your 
group,  nominal  or  real. 

In  order  to  establish,  to  develop,  and  to 
show  this  confidence  toward  God,  you  will 
need  to  stand  in  vital  and  vitalizing  relation¬ 
ship  with  Him.  If  you  will  need  to  pray  for, 
in  order  to  help  meet  their  needs,  you  will 
need  no  less  to  pray  for  yourselves  to  meet 
your  needs,  the  greatest  of  which  is  that  you 
stand  in  a  right  relationship  with  Him  to 
whom  you  pray.  The  matter  of  communion 
takes  time.  To  be  sure,  we  live  in  an  age  of 
haste,  and  we  may  not  always  be  able  to  set 
aside  as  many  hours  as  men  sometimes  ap¬ 
parently  have  set  aside  with  considerable 
regularity  for  formal  prayer;  but  we  must 
pray,  and  we  must  take  time  to  pray.  We 
need  not,  as  do  the  Mohammedans,  stop  all  of 
our  activities  five  times  daily  to  bow  our¬ 
selves  with  every  sign  of  reverence  toward 
some  geographical  point  of  remembrance  in 
order  to  pray.  We  may  need  to  pray  as  we 
run  sometimes,  but  it  is  far  better  to  run 
praying  than  to  do  nothing  but  run,  or  to 
pray  formally  only. 

Second,  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ 
charges  you  to  give  Him  a  chance  to  do  His 
part.  God  has  placed  a  great  responsibility 


72 


THE  CHARGE 


upon  you  as  His  servants.  He  consistently 
withdraws  Himself  from  the  apparent  activi¬ 
ties  of  the  firm,  but  he  remains  the  “Silent 
Partner/’  The  attitude  of  Paul  when  he 
writes,  “I  thank  Him  that  hath  enabled  me, 
even  Christ  Jesus,  our  Lord,  for  that  He 
counted  me  faithful,  appointing  me  to  His 
service.”  (1  Timothy  1:12)  is  very  sugges¬ 
tive  of  the  kind  of  thinking  that  a  servant  of 
God  can  well  afford  to  do.  After  all  is  said 
and  done,  the  thinking  that  we  have  been 
able  to  do  has  been  possible  because  Christ 
enabled  us  to  do  so.  God,  after  all,  has  en¬ 
dowed  you  with  your  abilities,  and  there 
have  been  more  times  than  any  of  us  are  con¬ 
scious  in  which  we  might  well  have  said  with 
Dr.  Hugh  Black,  “Friend,  this  is  not  my 
thought,  nor  thy  thought.  It  is  God’s 
thought,”  especially  when  we  have  achieved 
something  which  was  really  worth  while  and 
which  brought  us  a  satisfaction  that  cannot 
be  overestimated.  However,  it  is  not  a  matter 
of  giving  God  a  chance  to  lay  hold  only  at 
the  critical  moment  and  giving  us  the 
strength  which  we  need.  We  need  to  give 
God  the  chance  also  that,  as  Paul  writes  to 
Timothy,  “the  grace  of  our  Lord  may  abound 
exceedingly.”  Grace,  after  all,  is  the  ex¬ 
pression  of  God’s  good  will  toward  us,  and 


OF  THE  CHURCH 


73 


no  man  in  business  can  afford  not  to  give 
his  silent  partner  a  chance  to  express  his 
good  will  on  occasion,  for  most  silent  part¬ 
ners  in  business  are  the  power  behind  the 
affairs  which  men  on  the  street  see,  and 
surely  each  one  of  us  who  are  servants  of 
God  can  afford  to  give  our  “Silent  Partner” 
the  chance  to  express  his  good  will  toward 
and  in  our  business  with  such  abundance  as 
He  chooses. 

Third,  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ 
charges  you  to  study  and  appreciate  His 
answer  to  prayer.  When  we  have  learned  to 
appreciate  how  vital  and  vitalizing  the  rela¬ 
tionship  with  God  may  become,  how  stimu¬ 
lating  a  communion  with  him  is  when  our 
confidence  has  been  raised  to  the  heights 
where  we  are  willing  to  give  God  the  chance 
to  express  himself  both  in  act  and  good  will, 
we  may  still  have  to  learn  to  give  due  appre¬ 
ciation  to  what  he  gave  us  in  answer  to  our 
attitude  of  confidence  toward  Him. 

Asked  at  one  time  why  he  did  not  attend 
prayer  meetings,  an  old  man,  highly  regarded 
in  his  community,  answered,  that  it  was  too 
much  of  a  nervous  strain  for  him  to  do  so. 
Pressed  for  an  explanation,  he  said,  “I  have 
found  that  usually  one  of  two  things  occurs 
when  God  answers  prayer.  Either  men  don’t 


74 


THE  CHARGE 


see  it  at  all,  or  they  are  so  frightened  that 
they  do  nothing  about  it.”  This  man’s  posi¬ 
tion  may  seem  erratic  on  its  face,  but  is  it 
at  heart?  Many  a  time  men  have  prayed. 
They  have  wanted  the  measure  of  a  pint  and 
the  Lord  has  given  them  the  measure  of  a 
pail,  and  they  have  spilt  it  all  in  their  excite¬ 
ment.  Years  ago,  the  Protestant  Church  of 
America  prayed  for  an  open  door  in  Japan 
that  they  might  send  in  a  handful  of  mis¬ 
sionaries.  A  generation  ago,  God  answered 
that  prayer  by  swinging  the  door  of  Japan 
wide  open,  and  recently  one  of  the  leaders  of 
one  of  the  Protestant  Churches  which  has 
done  most  valiant  work  frankly  and  sadly 
told  me  that  when  God  answered  their 
prayers  a  generation  ago  they  failed  to  see 
the  opportunity,  and  that  they  were  to  blame 
for  the  fact  that  the  Japanese  were  closing 
the  door  again.  What  was  the  matter?  It 
was  a  matter  of  a  lack  of  appreciation  of 
God’s  answer  to  prayer. 

Men  will  ask  you  sometimes,  with  a 
challenge  that  savors  of  an  accusation, 
whether  God  ever  answers  prayer.  Lose  no 
time  with  that  question.  Make  them  face 
the  question  of  whether  they  would  be  ready 
to  receive  the  answer  which  God  would  give 
if  they  really  prayed;  but  be  sure  that  you 


OF  THE  CHURCH 


75 


are  prepared  to  face  this  question  with  them 
by  having  faced  it  frankly  yourself. 

Fourth,  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ 
charges  you  to  make  a  proper  use  of  His  re¬ 
vealed  will.  “But  we  know  that  the  law  of 
God  is  good  if  a  man  use  it  lawfully.”  (I 
Timothy  1:8). 

God  always  has  revealed  himself  to  men 
who  had  the  moral  capacity  of  becoming  his 
servants,  and  he  does  so  today.  His  spirit  is 
still  operative,  as/  you  will  find  out  in  due 
time,  in  a  larger  measure  than  any  theory 
can  suggest  to  you  now. 

The  things  which  we  have  suggested  in 
this  charge  are  meant  to  prepare  you  to  be¬ 
come  acquainted  in  an  increasing  measure 
with  this  spirit.  You  have  discussed  these 
questions  in  class.  You  have  been  led  to 
delve  into  the  depths  of  their  possibilities  by 
your  teachers.  You  have  thought  into,  and 
about  them  before.  I  have  suggested  noth¬ 
ing  new  to  you.  I  have  merely  attempted  to 
make  you  realize  that  the  best  which  has 
been  brought  to  you  will  be  the  best  for  you 
to  use  as  you  go  out  into  your  work,  and  your 
work  is  to  reveal  the  will  of  God  to  others. 
To  do  this  properly,  you  will  need  to  make  a 
worthy  use  of  His  will  as  He  has  revealed  it, 
and  as  He  will  reveal  it  to  you.  But  you  can- 


76 


THE  CHARGE 


not  hope  to  get  all  of  this  through  your  own 
experience,  and,  as  a  preacher  of  the  Gospel 
of  Jesus  Christ,  you  will  find  it  most  highly 
profitable  to  keep  in  mind  the  fact  that 
His  will,  as  revealed  through  our  Bible,  is 
worthy  of  a  proper  usage  on  the  part  of 
those  who  bear  His  message  to  others,  yea, 
that  it  is  necessary  that  such  a  proper  usage 
shall  be  made  of  the  Bible  in  order  that  your 
work  may  succeed  as  it  should  through  the 
guidance  of  God.  The  Bible,  after  all,  is  the 
preachers'  book,  and  it  was  given  to  the 
preacher  for  the  purpose  of  using  it.  He  has 
no  right  to  abuse  it,  either  by  trying  to  dis¬ 
regard  it,  or  by  wasting  his  time  or  energy 
in  trying  to  put  up  a  defense  which  it  does 
not  need.  It  is  given  to  you  as  an  instrument 
for  the  doing  of  that  work  unto  which  God 
has  called  you,  and  for  the  doing  of  which  we 
hope  and  pray  that  you  will  be  given  that 
wisdom  which  comes  from  on  High,  that 
faith  which  makes  your  lives  great  in  the 
midst  of  surroundings  that  tend  to  make  you 
small,  and  that  love  that  increases  in  the 
midst  of  the  conditions  which  exist  in  a  world 
like  this,  into  which  you  have  been  brought 
without  your  beck  or  ken  and  in  which  as 
prospective  teachers,  as  members  of  a  group 
of  teachers,  as  leaders  of  groups,  and  espec- 


OF  THE  CHURCH 


77 


ially  as  servants  of  God,  you  are  to  make 
your  contributions  to  Him  who  is  the  Father 
of  us  all  as  he  revealed  himself  through 
Jesus  Christ  our  Lord  and  Master. 


, 


w 


